September 27, 2007

Senate Passes Lieberman-Kyl "Help America Go To War With Eye-Ran" Act of 2007

Sometimes, I wonder what's the use of a Democratic congress:

WASHINGTON (AFP) — The US Senate has called for Iran's Revolutionary Guards to be officially designated a "foreign terrorist organization," a day after the House of Representatives passed a similar measure.

The Senate on Wednesday voted 76-22 for the non-binding amendment sponsored by Republican Jon Kyl and independent Joseph Lieberman to place the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, or Pasdaran, on the US terrorist blacklist.

Such a designation if adopted by the US government would open the corps and affiliated companies to economic sanctions.

The measure is a "sense of the Senate" amendment, which means it cannot impact the president's foreign policy, but is an important symbolic measure expressing will of lawmakers.

It says that senators agree it is in the critical national interest of the United States to prevent Iran turning Shia extremists in Iraq into a "Hezbollah type force."

The amendment says that senators believe that "inside Iraq" US economic, military, diplomatic economic and intelligence "instruments" should be used to back US policy against the government of Iran and "its proxies."

Hillary Clintoon voted for this amendment, and Obama conveniently abstained. Some leadership we got there.

U.S. To Build Base Close To Iran Border

Iran's role with the violence in Iraq remains a major preoccupation of the Bush administration, with the U.S. military now building a base, practically within shouting distance of Iran — an extraordinary step to curb what it says is the smuggling of advanced weapons into Iraq.

It will be called Combat Outpost Shocker, and it will hardly come as a pleasant surprise to Iran that the United States will have a new base just 5 miles from their border. Col. Mark Mueller, of the 3rd Infantry Division, said it is the first time the U.S. military will be that close to Iran.

June 12, 2007

"We [Don't] Report, You Decide"

So what do you do if you are the media arm of the Bush-Republican agenda and Eye-Rack is such a shitstorm? Why ignore it, of course, because who needs to inform the 85% Republican audience of the reality of the situation?

NEW YORK - On a winter day when bomb blasts at an Iraqi university killed dozens and the United Nations estimated that 34,000 civilians in Iraq had died in 2006, MSNBC spent nearly nine minutes on the stories during the 1 p.m. hour. A CNN correspondent in Iraq did a three-minute report about the bombings. Neither story merited a mention on Fox News Channel that hour.

That wasn't unusual. Fox spent half as much time covering the Iraq war than MSNBC during the first three months of the year, and considerably less than CNN, according to the Project for Excellence in Journalism. The difference was more stark during daytime news hours than in prime-time opinion shows. The Iraq war occupied 20 percent of CNN's daytime news hole and 18 percent of MSNBC's. On Fox, the war was talked about only 6 percent of the time.

The independent think tank's report freshens a debate over whether ideology drives news agendas, and it comes at a delicate time for Fox. Top Democratic presidential candidates have refused to appear at debates sponsored by Fox. Liberals find attacking Fox is a way to fire up their base. "It illustrates the danger of cheerleading for one particular point or another because they were obviously cheerleaders for the war," said Jon Klein, CNN U.S. president. "When the war went badly they had to dial back coverage because it didn't fit their preconceived story lines."

Fox wouldn't respond to repeated requests to make an executive available to talk about its war coverage.

May 23, 2007

Ghosts of Mossadegh

The CIA has received secret presidential approval to mount a covert "black" operation to destabilize the Iranian government, current and former officials in the intelligence community tell the Blotter on ABCNews.com.

The sources, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the subject, say President Bush has signed a "nonlethal presidential finding" that puts into motion a CIA plan that reportedly includes a coordinated campaign of propaganda, disinformation and manipulation of Iran's currency and international financial transactions.

"I can't confirm or deny whether such a program exists or whether the president signed it, but it would be consistent with an overall American approach trying to find ways to put pressure on the regime," said Bruce Riedel, a recently retired CIA senior official who dealt with Iran and other countries in the region.

A National Security Council spokesperson, Gordon Johndroe, said, "The White House does not comment on intelligence matters." A CIA spokesperson said, "As a matter of course, we do not comment on allegations of covert activity."

April 04, 2007

How The Other Shoe Dropped

A failed American attempt to abduct two senior Iranian security officers on an official visit to northern Iraq was the starting pistol for a crisis that 10 weeks later led to Iranians seizing 15 British sailors and Marines.

Early on the morning of 11 January, helicopter-born US forces launched a surprise raid on a long-established Iranian liaison office in the city of Arbil in Iraqi Kurdistan. They captured five relatively junior Iranian officials whom the US accuses of being intelligence agents and still holds.

In reality the US attack had a far more ambitious objective, The Independent has learned. The aim of the raid, launched without informing the Kurdish authorities, was to seize two men at the very heart of the Iranian security establishment.

Better understanding of the seriousness of the US action in Arbil - and the angry Iranian response to it - should have led Downing Street and the Ministry of Defence to realise that Iran was likely to retaliate against American or British forces such as highly vulnerable Navy search parties in the Gulf. The two senior Iranian officers the US sought to capture were Mohammed Jafari, the powerful deputy head of the Iranian National Security Council, and General Minojahar Frouzanda, the chief of intelligence of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, according to Kurdish officials.

And once again, Tony Blair can thank Dumbya for the latest crisis he's in.

March 13, 2007

United States of Israel

Top House Democrats retreated Monday from an attempt to limit President Bush's authority for taking military action against Iran as the leadership concentrated on a looming confrontation with the White House over the Iraq war.

Officials said Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other members of the leadership had decided to strip from a major military spending bill a requirement for Bush to gain approval from Congress before moving against Iran.

Conservative Democrats as well as lawmakers concerned about the possible impact on Israel had argued for the change in strategy.

Now why would one country have such significant veto power over US foreign policy? Oh yeah. . .

As everyone knows, House and Senate Democrats are trying to put together an Iraq war spending bill that will pressure the President to bring the troops home sooner rather than later. There is a general consensus on most issues relating to Iraq.

However, the authoritative Congressional Quarterly daily report reveals today that some Democrats are fighting Speaker Pelosi's language which would prevent the President from going to war on Iran without the approval of Congress. Simply put, Pelosi wants to avoid a repeat of the Iraq experience in Iran.

For the Dems, this is a no-brainer, or so one would think. But, according to the CQ some of the same Democrats most vehement about ending the Iraq debacle are resisting denying the President unilateral authority to go to war on Iran.

The hypocrisy is astounding. It is worth noting that the AIPAC conference begins in Washington this weekend with thousands of citizen lobbyists are being deployed to Capitol Hill to deliver the message that Iran must be dealt with, one way or another. This battle over the Pelosi language is part of the overall Iran effort. And you thought it couldn't happen again!

Indeed, Attacking Iran at this time with this army is just so laughably absurd and will only contribute to the ruination of this country that anyone who advocates for that plan has nothing but ill will towards this country. I guess we all know which country's welfare the Israeli apologists has in mind: their own, not the US.